Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden #bookreview #contemporary #romance #magicalrealism #chicklit
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Title: Recipe for a Charmed Life
Author: Rachel Linden
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: January 9, 2024
Page Count: 384
My rating: 4 stars
About the book:
After a day of unrivaled disappointments, a promising young chef finds every bite of food suddenly tastes bitter. To save her career, she travels to the Pacific Northwest to reconnect with her estranged mom, and discovers a family legacy she never suspected in this delicious novel from the bestselling author of The Magic of Lemon Drop Pie.
American chef Georgia May Jackson has one goal—to run her own restaurant in Paris. After a grueling decade working in Parisian kitchens, she is on the cusp of success. But in one disastrous night, Georgia loses her sous-chef position, her French boyfriend, and her sense of taste! Renowned for her refined palate and daring use of bold flavors to create remarkable dishes, Georgia is devastated to discover her culinary gift has simply…vanished.
When she receives a surprising invitation from her estranged mother, Georgia flees to a small island near Seattle hoping the visit will help her regain her spark in the kitchen. As she tentatively reconnects with her mom, a free-spirited hippie eager to make up for her past mistakes, Georgia realizes there is something about the enigmatic island she just cannot piece together. Good luck charms start appearing in the oddest places. Her neighbor is a puzzlingly antagonistic (and annoyingly handsome) oyster farmer. And her mom keeps hinting at a mysterious family legacy.
With the clock ticking and time running out to win her dream job in Paris, Georgia begins to unravel some astonishing secrets that make her wonder if the true recipe for a charmed life might look—and taste—very different than she ever imagined.
Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden is a contemporary romance that has a touch of fantasy in the form of magical realism. The main character in Recipe for a Charmed Life has a little extra spark mixed in her cooking giving the slight bit of fantasy side of the story.
Georgia May Jackson grew up in the states but had always dreamed of one day moving to Paris and becoming a chef and own her own restaurant in Paris. After studying and throwing herself into her cooking she thought she was right on track to achieve that dream after putting in a decade in a restaurant until one day she saw her Paris life go up in flames.
Georgia had been dating the head chef at the restaurant when she found him with another woman one day at work. To make it all worse though a critic was in the restaurant at that moment and in a moment of spite Georgia served him a ruined dish. Afterwards Georgia needs to pick up the pieces of her life so she decides to track down her long lost mother who now lives on a small island near Seattle.
Recipe for a Charmed Life by Rachel Linden was not only a story with a brewing romance but one that was all about family and finding home is where the heart is. I know some readers would shy away from a romance with a magical side but I’d urge them to give this one a try as that side is very faint with the character development taking center stage and guiding the story. This was my second book by Rachel Linden and I’ve enjoyed both and will definitely return for more!
I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.
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About the author:
Rachel Linden is a novelist and international aid worker whose adventures in over fifty countries around the world provide excellent grist for her writing. She is the author of Ascension of Larks, Becoming the Talbot Sisters, and The Enlightenment of Bees. Currently Rachel lives with her family in Seattle, WA where she enjoys creating stories about hope, courage and connection with a hint of romance and a touch of whimsy.
To learn more about Rachel Linden, visit her at http://www.rachellinden.com or connect with her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/authorRachellinden/ or Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/rachellinden_writer
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